To P. I. Chaykovsky, 14 October 1889. Moscow.

A short thank-you note written 14 October 1889 from Moscow to the composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It belongs to the brief, warm correspondence between the two men in the autumn of 1889, when Chekhov – already an admirer of Tchaikovsky’s music – and Tchaikovsky, who had read and liked Chekhov’s fiction, were exchanging visits and gifts; Chekhov would shortly after dedicate his story collection “Gloomy People” (Хмурые люди) to Tchaikovsky.

The content is slight but concrete: Chekhov thanks Tchaikovsky for something received (evidently a gift or a kindness, unspecified in the letter itself, that has left him “very, very touched”), sends back a photograph and some books, and returns a silver or metal cigarette case that Tchaikovsky had forgotten at his apartment during a visit – noting, as a small joke, that three cigarettes are missing from it, smoked by three named-by-profession guests: a cellist, a flutist, and a “pedagogue” (педагог, i.e. a schoolmaster/tutor who was apparently among the company). The note closes with a conventional but evidently sincere formula of devotion and the signature “A. Chekhov.”

The date line “89 – 14/X” in is Chekhov’s own shorthand restatement of the date (year abbreviated, day/month in day/month numeral order per Russian convention) and should be rendered literally, not expanded, to preserve the letter’s original notation.